


Two Boys from Brooklyn

by msbluesunflower



Series: 1917 [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Established Relationship, Future Fic, M/M, Reincarnation, Sequel, should read part 1 first
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-21 03:15:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14907266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msbluesunflower/pseuds/msbluesunflower
Summary: Steve Rogers dies at the age of 164.Sequel to '1917'





	Two Boys from Brooklyn

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fic from 2015. I recently decided to do some edits and repost the longer extras as a series because it made more sense that way. You should read part 1 of this series aka the main fic, 1917, first.

**_July 4th 2082_ **

“He was just standing there, dumbstruck, so I walked toward him instead. And I remember the moment he said he loved me, I started sobbing so hard I couldn’t even see. Then he put his arms around me like he used to when I still got asthma, and we were just hugging in the middle of a bookstore. People stared at us like we were crazy, but we didn’t give a damn.”

Rebecca pours her father a glass of water, and holds it for him as he drinks. To her, her father in his old age is still one hell of a handsome man. Sure, he’s got wrinkles, and his golden hair has gone all grey, but Rebecca can still find in those azure eyes the courage, kindness, and strength she’s known since the day she first called him ‘dad’. She can see all the way back to that one time in her teenage years, when he and Bucky came pick her up together after school in their uniforms because she had been bullied by some popular girls. She remembers the look of complete awe on her classmates’ faces, but more importantly the way they looked standing together — It made her feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

And she knows, too, without Bucky now, Steve’s only half a soul.

“Later he took me to his apartment, we ordered pizza and watched movies all night.”

“You didn’t, you know, make up for lost time?” She asks teasingly, and sets the glass down on the bedside table.

To her surprise, her father doesn’t blush. He simply smiles and cocks his head.

“Let’s just say, we had plenty of time to do that afterwards.”

Rebecca lets out a surprised laugh, “Dad, I’m not sure if I needed that in my head.”

“The next morning though, I woke up and he wasn’t there. I thought it was a dream or something. Then he came back and handed me my dog tags, which I’d given him before he fell in 1944. Guess what? Darcy sneaked it out from the Smithsonian. I had to write them an apology letter afterwards.” Smiling wearily, he pulls out the silver chain he has around his neck and starts fiddling with it. Rebecca sees the name on it then, and she stares in surprise.

“But that’s papa’s.”

“Yeah. I made him keep mine, and I kept his, because I felt as if they were what kept us safe.” Rebecca watches as he slips the chain back inside his shirt, the tags falling right against his heart. “It sounds silly, I know.”

“It’s not.” She reaches out and takes his hands in hers. After a beat, she adds, “I’m glad you found papa.”

“No, Becca,” He closes his eyes for a brief second, “He found me, too.”

Rebecca stays quiet for a moment. She’s not sure how to respond to that, because she knows now, Steve must be aching to find him again, in another world.

 _He wants to go._  That thought makes Rebecca wants to smile and tear up at the same time.

“Tell me about the wedding.” She settles for that instead, “It’s so weird. There’s only, like, one photo.”

“Oh, well.” Steve laughs, “That’s an even better one.”

 

Riley comes in then, bringing Rebecca her coffee as well as some soup in a bowl for Steve. He sits down and puts an arm around Rebecca’s shoulder.

“What did I miss?”

“You’re just in time for the wedding story.”

“Sit tight for this, Riley, cause I about gave your dad a heart attack.” Steve tries to sit up, and Rebecca reaches over to put the pillow behind him.

“The day the Supreme Court ruled on marriage equality. That was, what, 2015? Christ, almost seventy years ago. I had to make this speech about it in front of the president. At the end of it, I proposed. It was totally improvised, and thank God Mr. President wasn’t mad at all. In fact, he said congratulations on Twitter. Wait, I don’t think you even know what Twitter is. Anyway. Bucky said yes. ” Steve pauses, “We holed up at home to avoid the media storm, but that wasn’t even the worst of it.”

Steve smiles fondly at the memory, and she feels Riley leaning forward in expectation. Rebecca gets this bad feeling.

“Tony decided to plan our wedding. He set the date for July 4th.”

“Oh my God, no way.” Rebecca covers her face with her hands, laughing.

“You bet. It was crazy. And on the night of our bachelor parties, we just couldn’t handle it anymore.” Steve turns to Riley, “Bucky came to the bar I was at. We decided to elope. Your dad and Natasha were so drunk they fell asleep. So we stole the rings from him, rented a car and left.”

“Christ.” Riley barks out a laugh, “Don’t think the old man was happy about that. Where did you go?”

“We went to the Grand Canyon. A minister on vacation married us. That’s why there was only that one photo.” Shaking his head, Steve looks down at the ring on his left hand. It still fits perfectly.

“And when we came back,  _damn_  was Sam mad. Stark almost declared a war on me. Natasha wouldn't talk to me for a week, but that was mostly because she didn’t get to see us in the tuxedos she picked.” Rebecca laughs, because that is totally what Natasha would do.

“But, you know. We didn’t regret doing it. It was supposed to be about us, not politics or publicity.” Steve shrugs.

She finally understands then, why he had so adamantly refused to allow press at her wedding, and why Sam had agreed with him wholeheartedly. “After all, Becca, you’re half Rogers and half Barnes. And I still want to actually  _see_  my son get married.” Sam had told her at one point. She and Riley had both been confused, and Bucky had laughed without saying a word.

“Anything else you kids wanna know?” Steve asks. Rebecca snaps out of her bubble and blinks. There  _is_  something, but she’s not sure.

“What actually happened to papa’s arm?”

 

She sees her father go still all of a sudden, lowering his eyes. There’s a long silence. But just as she’s about to take the question back, he answers.

“He lost it in a mission.” Steve pauses, swallowing hard as if it’s painful to talk, “Protecting me.”

She holds her breath. No one had told her about this, and whenever she asked Bucky about his metal arm, he just shook his head and said it was a mission incident, and Tony made him a new one. But now that she knows, it dawns on her because of course —

Of course he was protecting him. In her head, the fact that her fathers would risk everything for each other is the law of the universe. That kind of love defeats death and destiny. Perhaps, ever since the moment they found each other more than a century ago in an alley in Brooklyn, it was the two of them against the rest of the world.

But what she hears then breaks her heart all over again.

“It was just a year after we joined the Avengers. We were at a Hydra base in Moscow when we got ambushed. They had managed to take down Natasha and Barton, and our backup was also compromised. We were on the roof of this massive building, it was snowing heavily outside and it felt so familiar, but I had no idea why.”

Rebecca sees tears in her father’s eyes then, a glinting sadness.

“I was wounded bad, so when they came at me, your papa picked up the shield to protect the two of us. I wanted to stop him. A fear crept up on me then, because I realized everything looked too similar to 1944.” Steve pauses, his voice starting to sound a bit choked, “Then it happened. He was falling off the roof and I was too late to catch him.”

Rebecca’s mouth drops open. She glances at Riley, and sees that his eyes are wide like deer in headlights.

“But this time I jumped after him. I thought then, if he has to die, I want to die with him this time.” Steve casts his gaze down, his lips pressed in a hard line like he’s in pain, a look Rebecca’s too familiar with ever since Bucky’s passing.

“When I was sitting by his hospital bed after the amputation surgery, I wouldn’t even talk to Sam or Natasha, wouldn’t stop blaming myself for not stopping him in time. That was when it occurred to me that he  _knew_. He knew the shield was too heavy for him. He knew it’d be 1944 all over again but he didn’t  _care_.”

She hears herself gasp, and Riley’s grip tightens on her shoulder. Steve’s voice is trembling but he doesn’t stop.

‘Soon after he first woke up, I started yelling at him. He yelled back because he thought it was stupid of me to jump off with him. All the doctors and nurses tried to quiet us down. But we wouldn’t stop. I was close to hysterical, questioning him why he’d risked his life in such an idiotic way. And gosh—He was still doped up on painkillers and his logic made absolutely no sense, but he said one thing, and that shut me up.”

“‘ _You_  are my life,’ he said.” Closing his eyes, Steve lets out a shaky breath. “And I thought, God, what did I ever do to deserve this man?”

 

Later that night, Rebecca brings Steve paper and pen the way she has been doing for the past few days. She doesn’t know what he’s been writing or sketching, but she doesn’t ask either.

Yet today’s different. Steve calls her and Riley in half an hour later, and sits them down by his bed.

“Son,” He turns to Riley first, “I know I’ve said this when the two of you got married. But treat Becca well, okay? Make her happy. You’re the only one who can now.”

“Dad,” She starts to tear up then, sensing where the conversation is going, “Don’t say that.”

“Becca.” He takes the stack of letters on his bedside table, “Bury these with me when I go, will ya?”

“Dad! Not yet, alright?” She’s outright sobbing then, tears streaming down her cheeks and she doesn’t even bother to wipe them. “Not yet.”

“Oh, sweetheart. It’s time.” Steve gives her a smile, not of fear or sadness but more of peace. “I can’t let him wait too long this time.”

 

The next morning, he doesn’t wake up.

 

The envelopes are blank and unsealed. There are seven of them, which is vaguely reminiscent of the ones he wrote in 1944. As Rebecca flips through them later that night, she has an idea who they’re meant for.

“You should read them.” Riley walks up to her, wrapping his jacket around her frail shoulders. “I think that’s why he left them all open. He wants you to remember their story for them.”

He turns back to leave the room, giving her some space to be alone. Rebecca opens the first one with trembling hands. The pages are neatly folded, and her father’s beautiful old-school cursive fills the lines,

 

 

> _I think I’ve forgotten how hard life is without you, Buck. It’s been more than a century since the last time I felt this way, but it doesn’t make it any less painful. I’ve known since the day I found you again in 2010, that even if we do get to grow old together, I’d have to lose you again._
> 
> _So when the serum started to wear off, I felt so relieved because I thought maybe this time I get to die before you do. It sounds selfish, I know._
> 
> _I changed my mind soon, though. Remember when I first went back to painting and you went back to curating at the museum? We’d just sit in Central Park on Sunday afternoons, I’d be sketching and you’d be reading, and life was never better._
> 
> _And then—The day we brought Becca home, I watched you walk around the house with her in your arms, introducing her to everything new. She was giggling and clapping, kissing you on the cheek, and you were smiling so wide. I knew then that I’d fight gods and monsters to have this in every life. Then if I must endure the pain of losing you over and over again, I’d cope too._

 

> _It’s strange to think about it. Sam was first, then Clint, Natasha, Tony. Bruce had disappeared to God knows where, and even Thor stopped coming to visit. There were the two of us left, but now you’re gone too._
> 
> _The worst thing about death for most people is the sense of unknown. They wonder where they’ll end up: heaven or hell or somewhere in between. For me it’s close but not quite: I don't care where I end up, but I do care if it’s where you are. And_ _even if it’s not, it’ll be fine, because I know we’ll find each other, no matter how long it takes._
> 
> _And no, jerk. I haven’t gotten sick of you, and I’m starting to think I never will. Seventy years may be long, but it’s not nearly enough._ _ It’ll never be enough. _

Rebecca doesn’t realize she’s crying until she gets to the last letter. This one is sealed, though, with just one piece of tape. She hesitates for a long moment before slowly pealing it off. She feels like she’s ten again, like when she hid in Natasha’s wardrobe and tried on her heels. But she soon decides that this is different. Like what Riley said, whatever it is, if she doesn’t remember it for them, it’d be lost forever.

 

> _I don’t know if you remember this: One time at Sunday school, the nuns were teaching about sins and afterlife, and they read us that passage from Leviticus. They said it was lustful and inherently wrong. You walked right out when you heard it, and I followed you quietly onto the sidewalk. I’d thought you never paid much attention to the Bible, but then you began quoting from the first book of Samuel._
> 
> _‘…the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.’_
> 
> _You’d turned to look right at me, but I didn’t understand what you really meant. Or really, I didn't dare to. Even now I’m still not certain that I deserve to be the David to your Jonathan, but you are right about one thing:_ _My soul is knit with yours, since long before we were even alive. Our first sin wasn’t lust. It was love._

 

> _…Born in 1918, Captain Rogers in fact lived for over one and a half century, but in the decades he spent frozen in the ice of the Arctic, he almost did not age at all. At the age 164, Rogers was the last of the original Avengers to pass away. His husband as well as a member of the Avengers team, James Buchanan Barnes, died only three months ago._
> 
> _Interestingly, the super-soldier serum that enhanced Rogers’ body in 1943 could’ve arguably prolonged his life. However, it is recently revealed by official sources that in Rogers’ fifties, the effects of the serum had started to expire. This eventually led to his and Barnes’ sudden retirement from S.H.I.E.L.D. Afterwards, the couple was seldom seen participating in Avengers affairs. Rogers had gone back to painting, which had been his occupation before Project Rebirth. Barnes, on the other hand, was hired as the curator of the New York Historical Society, where he had worked prior to his recruitment by S.H.I.E.L.D. Their daughter, Rebecca Margaret Rogers, was adopted soon after._
> 
> _When interviewed regarding the Captain’s burial, Ms. Rogers claimed that she has declined the President’s offer for both her fathers’ graves to be moved to Arlington National Cemetery._
> 
> _“This isn’t about the heroes they once were. Captain America didn’t die, Steve Rogers did. And Steve Rogers would want nothing more than being buried right next to Bucky Barnes, in the city they call home.” Ms. Rogers said, “In the words of my dad, they were just two boys from Brooklyn._
> 
> **_(“Two Boys from Brooklyn”. New York Times. Jul 6 2082. Print.)_ **

 


End file.
